


You're a Good Friend, Karen.

by ObservationalObsessive



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Karen cares about Peter, Precious Peter Parker, adorableness, just fluff, pop tarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 16:10:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11947848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObservationalObsessive/pseuds/ObservationalObsessive
Summary: “Your heart rate is unusually elevated. Is something wrong?”Peter sighed, shaking his head slightly. “Nah. Just… kinda made an idiot out of myself at the end of school. I got super embarrassed and my heart still feels like it’s beating out of my chest. You know that feeling, Karen? No, of course you don’t. You’re an AI.”“I may not be able to relate to it,”Karen told him.“But I can understand what you mean.”





	You're a Good Friend, Karen.

“ _Hello, Peter_ ,” Karen’s voice said as soon as he’d gotten his suit on after school.

“Hey, Karen,” Peter greeted after he’d pulled himself up onto the ledge of a building with a web.

“ _Your heart rate is unusually elevated. Is something wrong?_ ”

Peter sighed, shaking his head slightly. “Nah. Just… kinda made an idiot out of myself at the end of school. I got super embarrassed and my heart still feels like it’s beating out of my chest. You know that feeling, Karen? No, of course you don’t. You’re an AI.”

“ _I may not be able to relate to it,_ ” Karen told him. “ _But I can understand what you mean._ ”

Peter breathed a laugh and swung his back-pack off of his shoulders, pulling it around to his lab instead so he dig around in it. “Did you have a good day?”

He didn’t know why he asked her that so often. What exactly was she supposed to have been doing while he was at school?

Well, he didn’t know what being an AI was like. If he wasn’t using the suit, did Karen just shut off or did she exist online somewhere and watch cat videos or something? He didn’t know.

“ _My day was lovely, Peter,_ ” she told him, as she almost did. Her answer varied slightly. Somehow, her tone sounded almost fond. It would never cease to amazing Peter how wide her emotional range seemed to be for an AI.

Siri had nothing on Karen.

“ _And how was your day? Did school go well?_ ”

“Yeah,” Peter told her, drawing the word out as he considered it, pausing on his search and tilted his head to the right. “It was ok. Until the end of decathlon practice.”

“ _Was that when you embarrassed yourself?_ ”

Peter huffed and went back to digging in his bag. He finally found what he was looking for in a positively demolished ice cream sundae flavored Pop Tart. He grinned and set his backpack on the ledge next to him so he could open the silver package.

The two Pop Tarts were completely indistinguishable from each other; mushed together in a gooey, crumpled blob of sugar. Still, he wasn’t going to let it go to waste. It had been grabbed at the last minute to eat on the way to school after he hadn’t had time to finish breakfast but he’d forgotten about it and left it to slide to the bottom of his school books.

“I wish I could just go one day without making a fool of myself, you know?” he mumbled as he sucked some of the gooey Pop Tart filling from his finger.

“ _I’m sure it’s not every day._ ”

“Well, I appreciate that but it really, _really_ is.”

There was a pause.

“ _Would it help to talk about it?_ ”

Peter frowned thoughtfully, then shrugged a little. “I guess it might…”

“ _I’d be happy to listen if you feel like telling me about whatever happened._ ”

“Thanks, Karen,” Peter sighed with a smile. “You’re a good friend, you know that?”

He almost thought he heard her chuckle a little at that.

“So… I actually managed to stay through the whole practice, which is saying something for me,” he started, settling a little more where he sat and pulling his legs up to criss-cross them rather than let them continue to dangle over the edge. “Nothing too noteworthy happened during that. Flash was as obnoxious as he always is.”

“ _I don’t like Flash very well, based on what I’ve heard from you._ ”

Peter laughed at that. “Yeah, well, neither do I. Anyway… he wasn’t any worse than usual, so that was good, I guess. Ned had to leave just a little early because he had to go to the optometrist and his dad was picking him up. A few of us stayed a little late to clean up a little and just kinda talk, you know? And I just got all flustered and - and I sounded like a total idiot and it was like my brain just gave up on me and stopped providing information that I should _know_ . That I _do know_. So I just sounded stupid and I completely embarrassed myself in front of this girl I like so now she probably thinks I’m stupid.”

“ _You mean Liz?_ ” the AI questioned softly.

“I - uh, no. No, not Liz,” he faltered, a crease appearing on his forehead. He hadn’t really thought about her in a while. “Um, this is… someone else.”

“ _Oh. Did something happen to Liz?_ ”

Peter frowned. “Um… yeah, I mean - well, she moved. Because of her dad, so… it was kinda my fault, huh? She doesn’t even know that… But, no. No, it’s someone else.”

“ _Who?_ ”

“MJ,” he told her quietly. He hadn’t really admitted out loud that he liked their new decathlon captain until just then. It was weird. “She’s… really, really smart. And super cool. Like, way too cool to like me because I’m a dork and super awkward and embarrassing to be around and why would she like _that_?”

Karen responded immediately. “ _Because you’re brave, intelligent, and have a good heart. You might think you’re awkward but others will find it endearing. You’re motivated and passionate and you always try to do the right thing. I wouldn’t think there are many boys your age who are as thoughtful and considerate as you are. Why, you even ask how my day has been and how I’m feeling even though I’m an artificial intelligence and not a real person at all._

_“You said that MJ is very smart as well. If she’s smart, she would be able to see all the wonderful things that make you who you are. And any truly smart person would not only see that but like it too. So if she doesn’t, I think you may be wrong about her._ ”

Peter could feel his face heating up as she spoke about him but couldn’t help the smile forming on his lips either. He couldn’t think of anything to say so he didn’t.

He crumpled up the wrapper from his Pop Tarts and pulled his mask back down over his mouth and his backpack onto his shoulders so he could swing down to the trash bin on the curb and throw away his trash.

“Um, Karen?”

“ _Yes, Peter?_ ”

“Thanks.”

“ _You’re welcome, Peter._ ”


End file.
